Thirty years ago tonight, before the Detroit Pistons faced the Nuggets at McNichols Sports Arena, I was eating dinner in the press room. I was in my second year in the Nuggets beat after five seasons covering the NHL’s Colorado Rockies. This rarely happens today, but Detroit coach Chuck Daly was passing some of the pre-game time sitting in the press room, communing with the lowly members of the Fourth Estate and others.

Nuggets coach Doug Moe, as he often did, just poked his head through the doorway and smiled mischievously, checking out who was — and wasn’t — there. It was his way of saying hello.

Daly spotted him and called out, “First one to 140 wins.”

Moe laughed and responded, “We won’t even make it through the third quarter.”

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.

Nicki Jhabvala is the Sports Digital News Editor for The Denver Post. Before arriving in Denver, she spent five years at Sports Illustrated working primarily as its online NBA editor, and she was most recently the overnight home page editor at the New York Times.